Rosie Taylor is coming to the end of
her 3rd year as a Biology undergraduate. She is the outgoing LGBT+ Officer with
the Student Association, and a founding member of WellComm, the award-winning
wellbeing and community organisation for STEM subjects at the University of
Edinburgh. Rosie gave interviews in our previous Let’s Talk podcast series on
Mental Health. In this episode during lockdown, Rosie talks about family
estrangement in times of emergency, how overwhelming it can be to have all this
time to think about how you are feeling, and wondering what a ‘return to
normal’ means when you are questioning ‘What is my “normal”, what was my
“before”?’. Rosie also describes how lockdown and online learning exacerbates
aspects of OCD for her, and how she wants to feel safe but also to be open to
things that she enjoys. And she revisits the subject of social media: the
pressure of feeling always available; the messaging about the virus, or weight
control in lockdown, and the push for productivity, which detracts from the
time needed to be with ourselves and to heal ourselves; but also the
possibility of watching Netflix online together and of contacting old friends.